Having a pair bond, has nothing to do with offering a wide range of choices you snakes can make. Its a method to allow two or more KINGSNAKES to live in harmoney in the same cage. It doesn't matter if its a big cage or a shoe box. Its about a working compatibility.

The degrees of bonding, starts there and can become much more important and entertaining. With Lizards such as varanids, which were thought to be solitary much more then kings. It is easy to see all manner of extrovert signs, Holding hands, kissing, touching, etc.

Hibernation, brumation and choices. This often is very confusing as most do not understand where these snakes are coming from. Most keepers think kings as warm and you cool them in the winter. Where, I as a field herper, understand them as cool loving at all times and seek heat to accomplish certain needs. For instance, all snakes not under some metabolistic pressure, seek cool, that is, 55F to 65F year a round.

During times of reproductive need or digestion or shedding, they seek hotter temps, depending on need. This includes neonates that will stay on heat as long as there is food.

So if you want to offer choices, you start with a cool base, like 55F to 70F and add a range of temps up to 100F or so. And allow them to seek whatever they want. THIS WORKS. AND WORKS WELL.

I use my silly examples and as silly as they are, they are true, We find snakes out and active at temps ranging from just above freezing, to in the forties all the time.

Whats even funnier, python folks talk about hibernating or brumating pythons, yet, I have found five species of pythons crossing the road at temps between 50 and 60F. I would say because they were crossing the road, they were not hibernating.

ALso because I find snakes active all winter and moving a temps below what most of you call hibernation or brumation temps, They too are not hibernating.

of course in climates where they have no option but to use cool temps and cannot surface because of freezing temps, they will stay down. Please let me remind you, the vast majority of colubrids and many of the species you keep, come from areas that do not FREEZE and they have no need to stay down, and surely they don't. I cannot believe you Fla. folks don't understand that.

When I first lived in Fla, many many years ago, the real commerical collectors did not bother to hunt in the summer, they did the vast majority of their collecting in the winter.

This year on our study site, the one with cameras, there were snakes out and active every month of the year. And it even snowed a couple of times on my cameras.

So choices must be appropriate to the animals behavior, That is, cool base with the ability to seek whatever heat they want. Not, warm and hotter, that will surely end up with stressed snakes and infertility.

Again the problem is assumption. Many assume conditions based on THEM and not the animals.

Also something you miss altogether, In nature when the cool season comes, most colubrids move to areas with more heat, they do so to extend their active season.

Also many things can control active and non active behavior. In the vast majority of the world, its more attuned to wet season and dry season, not cold and hot.

Then theres the huge misconception about being active, what is that. When they do things pertaining to behavior, or when they cross roads. The truth is, they rarely cross roads and doing that rarely has anything to do if they are active or not.

A funny example, I have rattlesnakes that come and take food(mice) they are wild. What is funny is, that does not correspond with when we are finding snakes on the road. And we live in areas with lots of DOR's

Now let me go back to being FRANK, I am calling you tester/experiment folks, you know, Doug or Tony, or both. I am calling BS you you.

The reason I am calling you out is, I do not remember you asking or doing anything I do or did, or anything BR does.

Whats funny is, when you fail, you say, I tried your method, Which is total BS, you tried your own method. You did not start with neonates, you did not offer a base of cool temps, you did not offer methods in which the snakes can seek the temps they want, both out and in dark secure places. You did not feed when they were hungry(often daily) You also did not duplicate our results. Therefore, you did NOT use our methods.

So while you experimented, you did so in a very naive way, you made up your own tests, and I agree, your method appears to not have worked. But please, do not say you used our method. That is a bald faced lie.

With varanids we heard that all the time, FR I did what you did and it did not work. I would say, no you didn't, or it would have worked.

With that in mind, WHAT DID YOU DO, please explain, because I am sure both BR and I can find a whole bunch of things that made your methods not OURS. Cheers

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